Barrichello lifts the gloom with gripping display

The great thing about rain, apart from the fact that it plays havoc with grip, is that it brings out different things in different drivers. And sometimes it tells you things about their character that they might wish to remain hidden.

The rain on Friday upset all the speculation about how the high ambient and track temperatures that are expected at Interlagos would favour Michelin over Bridgestone, as had clearly been the case in Malaysia a fortnight ago.

It also upset the drivers. There was a slim chance that Friday's qualifying would not go ahead, because they were up in arms about the conditions. This year the tyre companies are only allowed to bring along one type of wet-weather tyre to each race.

Since torrential rain is less likely on average than a bit of a shower, both Bridgestone and Michelin opted to hedge their bets and bring intermediates. These are less effect-ive at clearing away water.

Everyone was aquaplaning. Raikkonen, Frentzen and Alonso all went spinning but did not hit anything. A hapless Pizzonia, already under huge pressure, smacked into two barriers after his Jaguar mistakenly thought it was a hydroplane. Several drivers, including both Schumachers and David Coulthard, thought about getting up a petition not to hold the qualifying session.

"Everybody thought it was too wet at the beginning," said Juan Pablo Montoya, who is no wallflower and has a win at over 220mph in the Indy 500 to prove it. "I think we were a bit concerned with the tyres we had that it was going to be recklessly dangerous."

An improvement in the weather diverted any confrontation between the drivers and the race director, Charlie Whiting, who would have had to take any decision about cancellation. But not before Jacques Villeneuve had come out with both pistols blazing.

Every generation has one fatalist. Villeneuve may not be to the Noughties what Pedro Rodriguez was to the Sixties and early Seventies, but the Canadian's fellow racers often look askance at him the way they used to at the Mexican legend, who believed everything was written in the great book and if your time came, it came.

Every sport should have at least one fellow who refuses to toe the party line and be muzzled, and who always shoots from the hip.

"People will think we are cissies," the former champion exploded. "We're paid millions of dollars to drive these things. We've got traction control. There's only one car out on the track, it's not like we are in a race. So you spin and hit a wall; these cars are designed to hit walls. You can always slow down and complete your lap, just to get your television coverage."

Not surprisingly, Lucky Strike BAR Honda team-mate Jenson Button had a different view after his spectacular destruction of two polystyrene advertising hoardings in qualifying when he put a wheel over a slick white line. "It was quite scary really," he said. "I had a lot more oversteer than this morning and the car was quite snappy coming on to the main straight. Then I had a big moment coming out of turn five. I tried to catch it but with such a damp track it was impossible. Despite the conditions today you have to push. The problem was that you don't really know where the limit is. We definitely need more than one set of wet tyres for these conditions."

The rain threw up a new hero, albeit one who took advantage of running when the track conditions were at their marginal best. After Rubens Barrichello set the fastest time and heavier rain frustrated Michael Schumacher, Button's crash delayed things sufficiently for the weather to improve a little and for Mark Webber, the last but one man out, to snatch the initiative for Jaguar. "The guys are pretty excited," the laconic Austral-ian remarked. So they might be, for there are clear signs that the team are starting to make serious progress, even if conditions flattered them.

It was almost an anti-climax as Saturday's morning practice reverted to a dry road, but Olivier Panis maintained F1's unpredictability by pipping Michael Schumacher to fastest time in his Panasonic Toyota, ahead of Trulli, Coult-hard, Montoya and Raikkonen. Webber, to Jaguar's delight, stayed solidly in the top 10 with eighth-fastest time.

To the relief of all (even Villeneuve), qualifying remained dry and sunny. After Friday's disasters, Button and Montoya were the first quick runners out but they were displaced as fastest by Fisichella, Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli who, probably running to Renault's Malaysian plan of an early two-stop race, moved ahead. The final quarter-hour was gripping. Schumacher's best earned him only seventh, the McLarens of Coulthard and Raikkonen moving to the front row only to be displaced, to the delight of the crowd, by Barrichello. But right up to the line Webber was a contender and he was third fastest. Strategy undoubtedly played its role, but it was gripping stuff.